The ground floor of a car dealership can be a chaotic place. For car shoppers looking to avoid the pressure of last minute deals, sales pitches and test drives, going to the dealer in person isn’t ideal. CarCodeSMS developed a way for prospective car buyers to contact car salesmen directly via text, without having to make the haul to the dealership.

CarCodeSMS co-founder Nick Gorton told The New York Times “We’re seeing this massive shift in how people shop, looking for answers in real time.” Using CarCodeSMS’ app, car buyers can text dealers directly to answer any questions they have about a car. Dealers can respond immediately, and track the customer as a lead in the CRM of their choice.

To the customer, it feels like they’re texting directly with a salesperson just like they would a friend. But, what happens if the customer goes to a different dealership and doesn’t want to text that salesperson anymore? This is where the app side of CarCodeSMS comes in. The app is opt-in and TCPA compliant, so when the customer wants to cut off communication, they can just send “STOP” to the dealer’s number.

After winning the Edmunds Hackathon in February, Nick and his fellow co-founders Steven and Prabode are scaling CarCodeSMS fast. “Winning the hackathon helped us refine the way we presented and pitched the idea,” says Nick.

The team is focusing on on-boarding dealerships to the app using local Twilio numbers. So if a customer in Seattle Washington wants to text a dealership, they can feel more comfortable texting a 206-area code rather than a generic 1-800 number. Those texts from customers come through the app and go directly to the salesperson’s phones as a hot lead.

The lean team of three plans to target enterprise car companies this year with hopes of getting 2,500 dealerships using CarCode this year.